Parts of Obama’s mortgage refinancing package will be reality

The proposals that require congressional approval have little chance, but some of the president’s ideas can be enacted administratively and could begin affecting consumers within weeks.

By Kenneth R. Harney

February 12, 2012

Reporting from Washington

Though it was pronounced dead before arrival by opponents on Capitol Hill, President Obama’s new mortgage refinancing package contained far more than legislative proposals.

In fact, significant portions of it that have received little media coverage require no prior approval from a hyper-partisan Congress and could begin affecting consumers within weeks. Here’s a quick rundown on key segments of the housing proposals with a handicapping of their likely impact this year:

•Going nowhere: If you’ve got an underwater mortgage that isn’t owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the president’s marquee proposal to help you refinance into a 4% mortgage is not likely to be of assistance. The plan’s core concept of funding your rate cut by levying a fee on the largest banks — based on their size and the riskiness of their activities — would be a nonstarter politically even if this weren’t an election year.

•Moving fast: Refinancings can be speeded up administratively by key executive branch agencies, and the new program directs them to do so within the next few weeks wherever possible. For example, the Federal Housing Administration will be removing a major barrier for lenders to streamline refinancings for current, nondelinquent borrowers who want to take advantage of today’s low rates. The FHA no longer will count streamlined refis — in which some standard underwriting requirements are waived — against lenders’ performance ratings on delinquencies. The fear of getting a poor rating is a powerful deterrent for many lenders against doing streamlined refis because they can lose their eligibility to do loans for the FHA altogether. Removing ratings as a barrier should help significant numbers of FHA borrowers get into a better deal.

At the same time, the White House has ordered all the other federal agencies with home buyer programs to clear the decks for streamlined refis of their existing customers. For example, the Agriculture Department, which runs the third-largest and fastest-growing program — last fiscal year, its loan guarantees funded more than 130,000 home purchases in communities located on the fringes of major metropolitan areas — is expected to waive requirements for new credit reports, appraisals and other documentation for streamlined refinancings. The main requirement for hundreds of thousands of existing USDA borrowers who want to switch to a lower loan rate: just be on time with your current payments.

•Coming your way: a mortgage servicing “bill of rights”: Though some reforms already are in place, the White House is requiring all federal housing agencies to enforce minimum standards on mortgage servicers, including mandating immediate interventions with offers of forbearance or loan modification at the earliest hints that an owner is facing financial strains. For borrowers, the plan also requires continuous points of contact with a customer service employee of the servicer plus access upon request to all relevant documents the servicer maintains on the borrower’s account. For homeowners who are turned down for a modification or other assistance, the plan requires a guaranteed right of appeal in “a formal review process” to give the borrowers a second chance.

•Long shot but could happen: The federal regulatory agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conservatorship disagrees, but the White House believes that both companies could eliminate all closing costs for large numbers of underwater borrowers who want to refinance into shorter-term loans and rebuild their equity. The idea is aimed at potentially hundreds of thousands of owners whose loans already are owned or backed by Fannie and Freddie.

To encourage them to use their refinancing savings to pay down their principal debt faster, the program would eliminate all closing fees for borrowers who opted for loan terms of 20 years or less. The refinancers generally would end up paying roughly the same amount per month on their loans, but the compressed amortization schedule would reduce the principal much faster than a standard 30-year payoff schedule.

Don’t count this one out. It’s a potential winner for borrowers if the legal issues can be resolved.

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Distributed by Washington Post Writers Group.

Authors: Fred Kreger

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